Top 5 features that make Android a better choice over iOS 5

The competition between iOS 5 and Android is getting more intensed day by day. With each update and head-to-head comparison between the biggies, striking similarities as well as dissimilarities have forced millions of gadget lovers to think twice over their smartphone of choice.

Check out the top five useful features of Android that will make it a better choice over Apple's latest build of iOS.

Flexible home screen and widgets

The beauty of Android home screen and widgets is that they are flexible and can be customized according to users' needs. You can easily customize your home screen, place widgets anywhere you want, and they will give you updates on features that matter. You can use widgets for weather updates, breaking news, emails, clocks, WiFi or even media playback controls. When it comes to iOS, users can only launch apps and create folders.

Customizability

You are free to customize almost anything on your Android. You can extend or replace almost every core Android feature by third-party apps. If you want more, the Android source code is there at your service. You can take the code and customize your ROM, by installing CyanogenMod or Gingerbreak. With Android you can change your default browser to Firefox or any other browser. But in case of iOS, Safari is your only option. If you want to customize your iOS, you need to jailbreak your iOS device.

Better voice control functionality

You just speak and Android brings you what you want. Yes, Android carries voice commands. You can easily search and find with voice search through Google. While listening to music, you just have to speak the title or the artist's name and Android lets you enjoy the music. You can also load third-party music apps like Pandora with the listen to command. But in iOS, the voice command options are limited. The music-by-voice feature of the iPhone is only linked to the iPod app.

Flash Support

Android can play Flash games and video, and iOS can't (and never will). It supports only HTML5 web apps. With iOS embracing HTML5 web apps, questions are raised on whether Flash offers what the industry really needs. According to numerous reports, most of the performance related issues have been rectified with Flash for Android Honeycomb.

Google Account Integration

iCloud is interesting. But it's just a cloud storage service. It stores your docs, pictures and apps. With Android, you'll have the benefit of Google Account Integration. You can edit your Google Docs no matter which device you are using, it can be your smartphone, tablet, laptop or desktop. You can upload music to Google Music, and stream from the cloud to your phone. You even can do a VoIP call via Google voice. But with iOS, you neither get streaming music nor VoIP.

GPS Navigation

Voice-guided GPS is a service which has been there in Android phones as a standard component since October 2009. Although iPhone has some third-party apps that offer turn-by-turn voice guidance, with Android's built-in functionality, you can easily jump in to navigate from other apps. In case of iOS, users have to manually copy and paste the address into the app they want to use.